


Neon in the City Smog

by ComposerEgg



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Gen, Sometimes you just gotta take a nap by being a city, alternatively: sometimes you just gotta waltz in and do what literally no one should be able to do, and wake up your friend who is being a city, prosey, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24191596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ComposerEgg/pseuds/ComposerEgg
Summary: His eyes are city smog.No, that’s not right.His eyes are the city lights. The fog that wisps around him is not his eyes. Those glow, pupilless but bright. Ovals of liquid neon dancing in the night.  A thousand signs carved into his body, reading that which he looks upon, instead of the other way around.
Relationships: Kiryu "Joshua" Yoshiya & Sakuraba Neku
Comments: 5
Kudos: 38





	Neon in the City Smog

His eyes are city smog.

No, that’s not right.

His eyes are the city lights. The fog that wisps around him is not his eyes. Those glow, pupilless but bright. Ovals of liquid neon dancing in the night. A thousand signs carved into his body, reading that which he looks upon, instead of the other way around.

The crowned Composer crosses his legs as he sits upon his city’s throne, staring out through a million different Music notes. Eyes flicker into existence as he needs, unseen but seeing, staring. Stars in the dark, blinking as they watch his city.

Bleed to the dance, whether the rivulets form chains or anchors or flow into figures of freedom is to be determined.

What could be shackles bind him, hold him in this city, barred from escape. Blind those liquid eyes with smoke and dirt. Hide him by invoking that which is written into his being. He is the city. Lost in the melody, everpresent but not _present_. Seeing but with no _body_. Pulled and plucked strings containing him by being the container.

A vessel sits upon the city’s throne, existence everywhere and empty.

This is not the first time you have moved through this song and dance.

The air weighs heavy here. Tension built. Humidity at 100%, and the storm clouds brewing, obscuring, are about to break. Electricity builds in the roots of your teeth, buzzing against your tongue, as the mist seeks to fill your lungs. To take _you_. Join you. Beckon you into the sightless seeing fog. Carve notes out of your bones and play your sinew as strings. You belong to the city as much as the one you choose to save.

Drumbeat footsteps pounds in your head like raindrops on concrete. Smog curls around your feet, glowing neon and obscuring the path. There is Music in the way you move, in the ebb and flow, and you are Watched and Known and Understood as you make your approach.

Closer now. Close enough to touch. Spiderweb staves embedded in his head swirl into the air, a rainbow of color against the stratosphere. Wavy hair flared, pulled, blending into the fog until it is one. Eyes closed so **Eyes** can see, mouth traced into a small, concentrated frown. Wings suspended in the air, each feather a piece of Shibuya. Porcelain skin that no god, no angel, could ever dare dream of touching without being host to his city’s wrath.

You take Joshua’s hand, and lightning strikes.

Breathe unneeded fills his lungs, color blooms across his cheeks, as burning purple eyes meet your own, and a smile blooms.

“Hello Neku,” he says, still holding your hand. “Come to wake _Sleeping Beauty_ from his nap?”

You drag him out of the throne, ignoring the thousands of eyes trained on you. The ones open across his body, in his wings, etched into the air. Those will fade in an hour or two, as he remembers how to be _Josh_ , instead of _Composer_. A person, not a city. Still Shibuya, but himself, more than that which he holds and which holds him in turn.

“It’s been three days, _Josh_ , I think that’s more than a nap.”

He laughs, bells ringing in the air and afterimages of dancing as sun peeks through the clouds shine in your mind. There’s an echo of melancholy, wisteria roots amidst his skin, dragging him back into the all-encompassing _everything_ that he is.

But when he smiles at you, holds your hand, and says, “Thank you, Neku,” you know he means it. Know that no matter what he is, how much he **Is** , he still chooses to spend his time with you.

Neon burns in his Soul, Music swirling through the city smog of his being, but what’s the point of burning bright as the sun, if the dance can’t be for two?

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! If you liked it, drop me a comment below!!
> 
> [For statements about transformative works based on mine and concrit, check out my profile page linked here!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ComposerEgg/profile)  
> (summary: I love it all)
> 
> [For info about my twewy discord server (including rules accessible outside the server itself) check out this link!](https://composeregg.tumblr.com/post/185734395826/)


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